WNBA Team With Top Rookie Has Less Than 1% Chance to Make Playoffs

WNBA Team With Top Rookie Has Less Than 1% Chance to Make Playoffs originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

The battle for the playoff spots in the WNBA is heating up, especially with less than 20 games left for each team in the regular season.

There’s no huge gap between the second and eighth seeds—the No. 2 New York Liberty are only four games ahead of the No. 8 Washington Mystics. Things are tighter for teams at the bottom half of the race, as proven by the fact that the No. 6 Indiana Fever are just two games ahead of the No. 9 Golden State Valkyries.

With that in mind, if a playoff contender suffers a losing skid at any point, it could cause a big swing in the playoff positioning.

Amid the intense race, however, a number of teams appear far from playoff contention. Both the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky have been given just a 0.1% chance to make the playoffs, while the Dallas Wings aren't faring much better.

Dallas Wings' WNBA Playoff Chances

The Wings' case is particularly interesting, especially since they have a couple of top-tier talents on the roster. Aside from four-time WNBA All-Star and two-time All-Star MVP Arike Ogunbowale, they also boast 2025 No. 1 overall pick Paige Bueckers.

Bueckers herself made the All-Star Game this 2025 after averaging 18.4 points and 5.8 assists per game at the time of her selection.

Despite their presence, the Wings have only gotten eight wins along with 20 losses, putting them at No. 11 in the standings. While they are still only six games behind the eighth seed, ESPN isn't giving them a good shot at making the postseason.

According to the network's WNBA Basketball Power Index, they only have a 0.9% chance of making the playoffs.

The Wings' chances were close to 2% heading to Wednesday's game against the Atlanta Dream, but their loss caused the number to drop.

Bueckers, Wings Facing Tough Road Ahead

It's understandable why the Wings have been given little chance to make the playoffs. While they have 16 games remaining on the season, eight of those contests are against top-six teams.

The Wings will face the Liberty and Fever twice each, and the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx once. They also have one game each against the Atlanta Dream, Phoenix Mercury and Seattle Storm.

Furthermore, in their schedule, they only have one game against a team with a worse record than them: against the Connecticut Sun on August 27. Clearly, things are looking bleak for Dallas.

Related: WNBA Rookie Paige Bueckers Assigned New Nickname by Fans on Tuesday

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 31, 2025, where it first appeared.